The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-10226, in the name of Cameron Buchanan, on strategic planning in the Lothians. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes that the initial consultation period for the Main Issues Report for SESplan 2 has now closed and welcomes the opportunity for engagement with a wide cross-section of groups and individuals, including community councils and other representative bodies in the Lothians, and considers that there may be lessons and issues arising from the implementation of the existing SESplan and associated local development plans, which may be worth considering as part of this process.
17:06
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss strategic planning in the Lothians this evening, and I extend my thanks to those members who added their support to the motion and allowed this issue to be debated.
I realise that strategic planning is not exactly a subject that sets the heather alight; indeed, I have seen eyes roll when I have mentioned it to my colleagues. However, when we begin to understand the planning system and the significance of the strategic city-based plans within that, the importance of strategic planning is obvious. It profoundly affects how our communities and towns, including Edinburgh, will physically grow in future.
When I discuss planning with people, I come back to the point that was well made at the Local Government and Regeneration Committee by John Wilson, who noted that most people view the planning system through the prism of their own individual experience with it. Specifically, they become aware of the wider planning system when a development is proposed in their community. The questions that they invariably ask themselves are about who planned the development and who approved it. That is the crux of the planning system, because those questions must be answered relatively straightforwardly and that requires a transparent planning system in which those who make the key decisions can be held to account.
The importance of the strategic plan is that it answers many of those questions, although perhaps not in a straightforward or transparent manner, along with those for our local development plans, which it also shapes. The housing developments, retail parks and other changes to our communities have their origins rooted in those documents, so their importance can hardly be overstated.
As we have just finished the consultation exercise on the main issues that will be contained in SESpIan 2 and many local authorities are in the midst of drawing up a new local plan, now would be an opportune moment to review how strategic planning is working. As my motion suggests, the bedrock of a healthy system is community and grass-roots participation in the process. We cannot encourage enough our community councils and other representative bodies to come forward and make themselves heard. However, that in itself is not enough.
I have introduced today’s debate to air some of the issues and, frankly, the frustrations that I have heard repeatedly from community councils and local authority councillors across the Lothians and further afield. One of those strikes at the heart of the transparency and accountability agenda, namely the development of the housing land requirement by the strategic planning authority and the use of the housing needs and demand assessment.
The most recent supplementary guidance has seen a reduction in the housing required for Edinburgh in the short term. Furthermore, I note with interest that reviewed guidance for the conduct of the HNDA was issued earlier this month. However, for many communities that is a small step, given that persistent doubts have been raised about the integrity of the assessment and that people have myriad questions about the process. That is a huge cause of controversy because of the significant pressure that it places on our greenfield sites and, indeed, the green belt. With brownfield sites in the Lothians that were identified in previous local development plans still lying undeveloped and with a significantly lower population than estimated, leading to reduced local government and health board funding in the area, it is easy to see where the frustration and doubts come from.
I understand that, only last week, representatives from the highly regarded Cockburn Association, which was established to promote conservation in Edinburgh, called into question some of the figures with planners from the City of Edinburgh Council. Those planners appeared to concede that the figures might be awry.
We must have full confidence in the demand for housing land supply, particularly as communities are being asked to give up valuable green space. I ask the minister to commit this evening to reviewing the targets and their methodology and—above all—to ensuring that the process is transparent. He has until only tomorrow to comment on the updated land supply guidance and he should take the opportunity to demand improvements.
One site that is threatened is Curriemuirend park; almost 500 people have objected to the proposed development there. Plans to invest in facilities for locals have been shelved in anticipation of the site’s development for housing.
That raises the question of who locals hold responsible for housing supply figures. They are struggling to find anyone who will take responsibility. When councillors are challenged about the decisions in the local development plan, they point to the Government. When the public raise the matter with their MSP, they are told that the fault lies with the all-powerful strategic plan. I suggest that there is a strong feeling that such plans allow politicians to avoid responsibility for tough decisions.
It is perhaps time for such significant decisions, particularly on housing, to be formally debated in the Parliament, so that we are clear about where we all stand on them and so that the public can see who is taking the decisions and—above all—hold those people to account accordingly. To put it simply, we must stop the blame game and stop politicians running away from their responsibilities.
That brings me to approval of our local plans. In Edinburgh, serious concerns about the infrastructure implications of several housing developments have been raised. Anyone who knows the level of congestion in the west of the city will understand the plight of residents in Cammo, who have taken the extraordinary step of threatening legal action against the city council.
More extraordinary still is the response of the city’s planning convener, Councillor Ian Perry, who suggests that any delay to the development plan would put in danger all of Edinburgh’s green belt and greenfield sites, which is plainly nonsense. The residents of Cammo and Edinburgh overall deserve a better choice than either a dud plan or uncontrolled and unfettered development of the green belt.
There are profound questions about the suitability of the local development plan’s implications for infrastructure. Given that, we should have time to step back and reflect on whether it can be improved but, instead, we face the prospect of its being forced through despite the concerns. I ask the minister to clarify whether he thinks that such advice is appropriate in the circumstances.
Accountability and transparency are the key aspects of an effective planning system. In the development of SESpIan 2, those two areas must be improved. In the more immediate term, urgent action is needed. I ask the minister again to undertake to reject the housing land supplementary guidance until we have confidence in its figures. I look forward to his comments on the situation in Edinburgh and I hope that he will agree that forcing through approval of a local development plan in such circumstances is in no way appropriate.
17:13
I congratulate Cameron Buchanan on getting us to debate strategic planning. He mentioned issues that concern many people. I was so concerned about housing land, development priority and the order in which development takes place that I asked the city council to give all the relevant MPs and MSPs in the Lothians a briefing on that. We had that meeting in January, which was useful.
One key challenge that was presented to us was that, when the previous local plan was put in place, it allocated 18,000 houses to Forth Ports land. When Forth Ports removed that, that created a challenge for the city. A difficult issue lies at the heart of the agenda. We need more houses in Edinburgh. We need more affordable housing for rent and for housing associations and council housing and we need more affordable housing to buy. The lack of new provision and the fact that many houses have been taken out of general residential use to provide short-term lets in the tourism industry mean that we have phenomenal pressure on housing. For those reasons, I am glad to have the debate.
One challenge is that we might see increasing social polarisation as people who are on low, modest or even relatively good incomes cannot afford to buy property in the city. As they do not qualify for social rented housing, they face the relatively high cost of rented accommodation or they have to leave the city. That is not good for us. Having lived in London previously, I worry about Edinburgh going in the same direction. More investment in social rented properties, particularly on brownfield sites, is crucial. That must be a priority in SESplan 2.
I support the council’s policy of having 25 per cent social rented housing on major developments. That is important, because housing is in short supply. We also need to focus on the different types of house that are needed. It is about the cost and the availability of the right kind of housing. In my casework, I see a lot of families and older people who are looking for housing and cannot afford the housing that is available at the moment.
I will finish on the issue of the challenge that faces house builders. The costs of development have increased, as has the cost of finance, and that is a real challenge that runs through SESplan. It is referred to in the reporter’s findings on the spatial strategy in SESplan, in which he says that there will be challenges to the delivery of housing in the short term because of the limited resources that are available for development and supporting infrastructure. It is partly a challenge of development infrastructure from the council and the lack of capital investment that the council has for new houses and infrastructure, particularly transport infrastructure. It is also an issue of finance for the development industry.
The housing land audit that was carried out last year shows that a key part of the story is the number of sites that were identified in the local plans but which are not being implemented. There were 12 sites for which consent has expired. The plans were in the development plan and given planning permission, but the development was not taken forward. There were 16 local planned sites with no consent or activity on them. Consent was given for those sites and they were in the local plan, but they were not taken forward. There were 10 sites where the developer or the company went into administration. All that is a key part of the story that needs to be part of tonight’s debate. Sites have been identified for development but they are no longer being taken forward. Questions must be asked about those sites and the capacity to develop them. They were the top priorities for the council the last time. There are massive implications from the loss of the Leith port sites, and the council now faces a difficult situation.
When the minister sums up, I hope that he will show that he has listened to representations from the council and those of us here tonight who are concerned about the lack of progress on brownfield and approved sites in the latest development plan.
17:17
I congratulate Cameron Buchanan on bringing this debate to the chamber.
Nothing comes to my inbox more often than the strategic plan and the effects of the proposed local development plan. It is the thing that we have to deal with in the constituency office. I find myself in agreement with Cameron Buchanan’s speech; there is also much to what Sarah Boyack said.
In my constituency, consultation by the City of Edinburgh Council has been nothing short of abysmal. There is also a feeling that deals have been done. Local people, particularly in Cammo and Maybury, have no faith in the process, simply because of the dismal way in which the City of Edinburgh Council has handled their objections.
In a recent Evening News article, John McLellan mentioned that something like one quarter of the total number of objections to the local development plan deal with the western part of Edinburgh. That is because the traffic and environmental situation in that area is dire. The Queensferry Road corridor, particularly Barnton, and the Corstorphine Road corridor, particularly Maybury, and St John’s Road, are some of the most polluted areas in the United Kingdom. Despite that, some planner has decided that, although there are fields available and plenty of space for development, the main issues report need propose absolutely no plans to show how the infrastructure will support development, both in those areas and along the corridors of two of the busiest roads in Edinburgh.
I feel that I have to support my constituents. For many years, there has been talk about the transport and pollution problems in those areas, yet despite various questions there are still plans that cover transport from Newbridge to Maybury but no further. A common response is, “Don’t worry about it; the tram will deal with that.” The tram will not deal with that.
The transport assessments are, quite frankly, unbelievable, on the ground that they say that they can mitigate against future growth in traffic, when in fact the problem is here, right now. I hope that the minister listens to what is being said. I know that the City of Edinburgh Council has a difficult decision to make. Nobody is denying that there is a housing shortage in the area, but we cannot just dump houses down and hope that the roads will support the amount of traffic that goes along them. Maybury and Cammo have serious problems and East Craigs is in a shocking position, as it has only one road out, on to Maybury Road, which has two of the busiest junctions, at Barnton and Maybury.
The City of Edinburgh Council has done nothing to discuss the problems with people and come up with solutions. We have held public meetings, but nobody believes what is being said about strategic planning, because they feel that the information that has come back to them is way off the mark. I make a plea to the City of Edinburgh Council to start getting its act together to do the work that it must do to convince people that the houses that are required can go into those areas.
Queensferry is another area that has just been told that 1,000 more houses will be thrown down there. There has been no consultation. It is absolutely abysmal. Before I carry on and get into greater degrees of problems with my council colleagues, I will simply reiterate that there are difficulties, as Cameron Buchanan said. I appreciate Sarah Boyack’s efforts in arranging the meeting that took place but, as has been pointed out and as people saw at the meeting, the convener did not have any real answers. That is the difficulty that we face.
17:22
I am delighted to contribute to tonight’s debate on the importance of local development plans, and I sincerely congratulate Cameron Buchanan on securing time in the chamber to consider the important issues raised by the second south-east Scotland strategic development plan.
As a Glasgow MSP, I have no direct association with the work of the south-east Scotland plan or its associated local authority areas, but I understand the importance of a coherent planning system across the regions of Scotland, and I have previously enjoyed learning about the work of the Glasgow and Clyde Valley strategic development plan area at the Local Government and Regeneration Committee, of which Cameron Buchanan and I are both members.
Although those regional bodies and the work that they carry out might initially appear far removed from our everyday lives, the effect of the decisions that they take cannot be underestimated. Strategic development plans will inform future planning applications and will be instrumental in creating the kind of town and city centres that we all want to live in.
Although the context of each regional plan will vary, the existence of a strategic approach to planning will help to move forward a number of shared aims. For example, we share a common commitment to increasing the availability of affordable housing, which Colin Keir mentioned, particularly around our largest cities. The plan will allow that aspiration to be realised, by designating the geographical zones that each local authority should allocate for future building projects. That will fight against the continuing price rises in urban and city centre areas and will allow families on lower incomes to live nearer the places where they work.
The plans also allow key public bodies to work together at the earliest stages of town planning. Our transport, waste, water and energy infrastructure will also be covered by the strategic plans, as will the promotion of green belts and networks.
We must ensure that our local community groups are consulted alongside local and national public bodies at the early stage of the planning process. I am confident that, through meaningful engagement in all our planning areas, we can create the kind of Scotland that we all want.
17:25
I, too, thank Cameron Buchanan for securing the debate. There are lessons arising from the development of the local development plans and SESplan, but we need to remember that they arise because Edinburgh is one of the economic powerhouses of not only Scotland but the United Kingdom. People are attracted here because of employment opportunities and the quality of life. As a result, there is an unmet demand for housing in and around the Edinburgh area. Indeed, that is a result of not just an increasing population but growth in the number of single adult households.
Local authorities throughout the Lothians have a responsibility to calculate the demand for housing in their areas. They then have a duty to allocate sufficient land to meet the demand that they have identified. That then forms the local development plan, which in turn feeds into SESplan. The problem lies in identifying sufficient and suitable land within the city boundary to meet the demand for housing.
A number of issues for Edinburgh in general and for the west of the city in particular should be considered by councillors and local authority officials before allocating land. Traffic congestion at peak times is a major issue, particularly in the west of the city. Data supplied by a leading satellite navigation company places Edinburgh as the third most congested city in the UK. During the morning rush hour, estimated journey times are on average 34 per cent longer than usual, with the figure rising to 60 per cent. The situation will only get worse as the thousands of new homes that are already approved are built in areas in West Lothian and Fife, all of which are commutable into Edinburgh. Councillors need to say how the road network will cope with further increases in traffic before deciding whether to build in the west of the city.
We have poor air quality in and around the four main arterial routes into the west of the city. Of the four routes, Queensferry Road, Glasgow Road and Gorgie Road regularly fail the European Union air quality standard, with Lanark Road recording increasing levels of pollutants. I have raised the issue before and I continue to believe that, if Edinburgh councillors accept the revised LDP that the officials propose, they could be adding to the problem, with a resultant reduction in quality of life for residents who live close to those roads.
If Edinburgh councillors are looking after the best interests of residents in the west of the city, they should comply with Scottish planning policy by ensuring that housing is built on brownfield land first and greenbelt land last, if at all. In my constituency of Edinburgh Pentlands, some of the land that is identified in the Edinburgh LDP is agricultural land. Scotland is rightly proud of being one of the few countries that is able to feed itself. We cannot continue to lose good-quality arable land to developers when brownfield sites exist. Sarah Boyack read out a list of all the brownfield sites that have not been developed. It suits developers to build on greenfield sites, as the costs of development are lower and there is a price premium because the sites are in nice leafy suburbs.
The council must deal with the issue of empty homes in the capital, the number of which was recently estimated to be 4,300. The council recently announced the employment of an empty homes officer, who needs to help owners to bring those properties back into use as a matter of urgency.
The Scottish Government has invested heavily in the Airdrie to Bathgate railway line and the new Borders railway. Should not planning policy encourage councils outwith the SESplan area to build new homes to take advantage of those commuter routes rather than replicating the problems in our other capital city?
17:29
Our towns and cities are where we live, and the way that they are designed and built has a profound effect on our lives. People want to live in nice places that provide a community with good-quality housing and connections to local shops, green spaces, libraries and other amenities. One person’s idea of a good place to live will be different from another’s but those are some basic, entry-level things that planning should deliver.
Land-use planning is a profession for a reason. To balance all the demands on our land is a difficult art, particularly when we are not in control of the building itself. However, just because it is a profession does not mean that the experts have all the answers—far from it. Land-use planning should be done by people who live on the land. We should not be frightened of opening up such decision making. Of course architects and developers have an important role in that, but so do the people who will live in and alongside the houses that they build.
What holds us back from a step change in public engagement? The Involve Foundation and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce tell us in “From Fairy Tale to Reality: Dispelling the Myths around Citizen Engagement” that those myths trap us in a way of thinking that says that public engagement is too expensive and too difficult and that people are not up for it. The report has myth-busting examples of engagement that works from around the world.
Land-use planning will always be political and contested, so we should not run away from that. I congratulate Cameron Buchanan on bringing the debate to the chamber. He has identified the most contested part of the current SESplan, and things are moving very fast in the City of Edinburgh Council as a result.
Does anyone genuinely believe that 107,000 new homes are required in south-east Scotland over the next 10 years? It has taken 300 years to reach the 500,000 or so households that we have at present, and those unrealistic housing targets have come up time after time in community meetings throughout my region.
People see land that is already zoned for housing in the hands of developers but left untouched. Housing targets in the plan mean that more land is to be zoned, but the targets are bloated by a 10 per cent generosity margin. Take away the fat and the generosity, and the need to sacrifice the green belt at Cammo and Curriemuirend vanishes. People are understandably incredulous and often angry that their views are ignored and that estimated housing numbers from a desktop study are given precedence.
Edinburgh needs more homes, but the spread of the suburbs and executive housing will not meet that need. How many homeless people or people in housing need will get new homes in David Murray’s garden district?
The local authority blames the Government, while the Government pins the blame on the local authority. On 12 December last year, I asked the Minister for Local Government and Planning during oral questions
“what role local authorities have in determining appropriate housing land supply.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2013; c 25663.]
He replied that the numbers are set by the local authority. That is true to an extent, but the housing forecasts are done with a Government tool and signed off as credible by the Government.
The Government has the last word and is enforcing it, but that creates a local development plan that meets developers’ needs, not real people’s housing needs—that is the issue.
I am sure that the minister understands that the argument that more new supply will reduce house prices is nonsense, because new supply is only a fraction of overall supply and makes very little difference to price. Indeed, the evidence is the opposite over the most recent cycle: when supply was at its highest, prices were greatest.
SESplan 2 needs to deliver housing that meets the needs of people, not developers. As Gordon MacDonald pointed out, there are thousands of long-term empty homes in the capital. That needs to change, and the City of Edinburgh Council lags behind other councils on that.
Brownfield sites that are earmarked for housing need to be used for housing. Examples such as those at Chesser and Oxgangs, where housing land has been given over to large-scale retail, should not happen, given the housing need.
The Government should recognise that any forecast comes with a health warning. It should not be set in stone. We need to be guided by reality and aim to build the kind of homes that work for people in the greatest housing need: those that build on existing social networks, where services such as shops, schools, surgeries, community centres and public transport are more viable.
17:34
As a member for South Scotland, which includes East Lothian, I add my thanks to Cameron Buchanan for bringing the debate to the chamber.
Mr Brodie, could you lift your microphone up, please?
I beg your pardon. I am sorry, Presiding Officer.
The population in the south-east of Scotland is approximately 1.2 million and is forecast to grow to around 1.4 million by 2031. The constituent authorities recently set out their vision for the south-east of Scotland as
“the main growth area and the key driver of the Scottish economy.”
Edinburgh, a leading European city, is, at its heart, a capital city that is the hub of the regional economy.
The SESplan vision to 2032 sets an objective for the Edinburgh city region to become a
“healthier, more prosperous and sustainable place”
of outstanding international recognition. The plan considers housing, transport, employment, land supply, strategic employment sites and, of course, our town centres. It is a plan to accommodate a growing population: there is demand for 107,000 houses to be built across the area by 2024, and an additional 48,000 to be built between 2024 and 2032
Although Edinburgh is the hub and the heart—congested though it may be—the energy comes and will come from local communities for which a sense of place and identity are paramount, such as those in East Lothian. Maintaining community identity is key while each community develops opportunities and strengths brought by new communication and social links with neighbouring communities.
Investment in transport links, in the Borders railway and in local rail links—again, as in East Lothian—creates a moveable social network that helps to connect a growing population with places of work.
Passenger growth in the pIan area continues to grow and we need to ensure that our transport system can accommodate that growth, while, of course, embracing our climate change targets. Strategic employment sites of around 1,000 hectares and the deployment of the same have to go hand in hand with land for housing if the objective is to be achieved.
Growth in the region—strategic growth—will be achieved by an even spread of development. The constituent authorities around the region must share in the stated aim of the plan that the area be
“internationally recognised as an outstanding area in which to live, work and do business.”
The plan is an opportunity to create viable business opportunities close to populations. It is an opportunity for universities and colleges to work with local communities and employers.
The commission for developing Scotland’s young workforce was tasked with making recommendations to ensure that Scotland produces better qualified, work-ready and motivated young people with skills that are relevant to modern employment opportunities—young people who are the employees and entrepreneurs of the future. That is a challenge to our education system and to business and industry, which must become much more actively engaged in youth employment and education and provide quality employment opportunities in the area to a lot more young people.
In developing new communities and growing others, we might want to ensure that there are opportunities for mixed-use development to bring job opportunities closer to home and to the communities.
The strategic development plan supports the development of a range of marketable sites of sufficient size and quality to meet the requirements of business and industry within the area. One such opportunity has arisen in East Lothian. Cockenzie power station closed in March 2013 after 45 years of producing power for Scotland. I believe that plans for developing the site are proceeding and that they embrace all interested parties.
The options for the potential re-development of the decommissioned Cockenzie power station site are many. It is envisaged that there might be an energy park, which might become a major hub within the wider Forth/Tay renewable energy cluster that relates to other locations to serve the needs of the offshore wind market in particular. The site also has the potential to serve the freight and leisure markets by accommodating Scotland’s fast growing export markets and its tourism activities.
Such a development, properly developed with local consultation, provides a real opportunity to create sustainable employment in East Lothian and to bring highly skilled jobs in engineering and hospitality, for example, that are backed by the excellence of our schools, college and universities.
Opportunities such as Cockenzie—it is not the only such opportunity—allow for the development of a fully integrated regional community working as a team, travelling as a team, learning as a team and winning as a team.
17:39
It is appropriate that I, as planning minister, respond on behalf of the Government, but I hope that members will also appreciate that there are some constraints on what I can say because of live and current planning matters. In some respects, I will speak in general terms.
I believe that it is important that the planning system is, indeed, plan-led. In January, when I presented to Parliament the proposed national planning framework and a position statement on the review of Scottish planning policy, I emphasised the four priorities for the planning system, which I said were performance, simplicity, a plan-led system, and delivery on the ground.
A third national planning framework and revised SPP are coming to fruition after a period of active engagement across a wide range of interests. I will launch both documents next week. NPF 3 and the SPP will provide a clear national vision; I want development plans also to provide vision, and to provide clarity and confidence to developers and communities at strategic and local levels.
For the four city regions and their strategic development plans, the challenges are increased by the need to work across local authority boundaries. That does not mean that the challenges are unresolvable, but there are some very challenging issues.
I was very keen, once the first round of the new SDPs were in place, to review the effectiveness of the arrangements and to ensure that the plans were fit for purpose: the strategic development plan review that was carried out by Kevin Murray Associates and the University of Glasgow is now complete. I will announce our next steps on that review next week.
The review has found that the arrangements are not broken, but nor are they fully optimised. With the second largest projection of population and household growth in Scotland, related infrastructure constraints and a sensitive landscape within which to find new locations for developments, there are clearly and undoubtedly pressures in the circumstances that are presented in the Edinburgh and south-east Scotland strategic development plan authority’s area. However, other areas have shown that the arrangements can and do work. SESplan and the other strategic development planning authorities were created to take the lead on planning for the growth and development of each city region. That means delivering and making a difference for communities on the difficult strategic issues in a timely way. If that does not happen, the SDPs lose their relevance and create additional problems within the planning system.
Delivering effective plans can be achieved only through effective engagement as early as possible—the sooner, the better—to identify and prioritise the issues and to work closely with the delivery bodies to resolve them.
So, what is SESplan planning for? Let us be clear that it is not planning for a centrally imposed housing figure. As the other authorities were, SESplan was required by SPP to prepare a housing need and demand assessment and to agree its own housing supply target through working with the relevant housing and planning interests. The HNDA forms part of the evidence base for the housing supply target—which is sometimes referred to as the housing requirement plan—but, importantly, it should also take into account wider economic, social and environmental factors in order to arrive at the amount of land that will be required for new homes. Of course, identification of sites, with early community engagement, is to be encouraged.
Unfortunately, when SESplan’s report was submitted to ministers for examination, although it set out an overall housing requirement, it did not show how that requirement would be distributed across the six constituent authorities. Without that, it would not have been clear what the individual authorities would be planning for. Would it be an equal split or would it be planned on the basis of need, capacity and other considerations, which is surely the basis of proper strategic planning?
When I approved SESplan’s plan last summer, I therefore accepted the reporter’s recommendations that within 12 months supplementary guidance must be prepared setting out how the requirement would be distributed. That guidance is now with me and I hope to issue a decision on it shortly. That will provide clarity for planning authorities in taking forward their own local development plans, which will give communities the opportunity to engage fully on where needed development should be located.
Development plans are at the heart of an effective planning system. Strategic development plans provide the steer for more than half of all Scotland’s local development plans. In the case of the Lothians—and not forgetting Fife and Scottish Borders—SESplan must engage effectively with its interests in the broadest sense and produce a plan in which all parties can have faith. It needs to provide clarity and confidence around the resolution of key challenges that are facing the area and, crucially, it needs to add value and to make a difference to the local development plans that follow and to the communities for which it is planning.
Meeting closed at 17:44.Previous
Decision Time